Eighty-Sixth Entry

March 16^th, 2037

1045

Dear Space Diary.

Been watching the lightdogs for about 20 minutes. They’ve been steadily digging up the ground with their lasers, cutting out cubes of soil, then carting it away.

Strangely, they seem to be changing colour on their own now, without any direct intervention from us. They glow green while cutting up the rock. Then one turns to a yellow light and drags it over to a pile. Then they turn blue and start neatly stacking and sealing them into giant squares of rock, so smooth you’d hardly know they used to be separate pieces if you hadn’t just see them use to be separate pieces. Then it’s right back to Green and back to chopping up more rock.

Quite the production line. Kind of like if you had your house assembled by Christmas lights. Christmas lights with lasers.

Based on what I’m seeing I’m pretty sure they weren’t after us with the lasers, we just happened to be in the middle of their plan, whatever that might be. It is odd that they only began to change when Mary and I approached them, but on the whole I’ll take a little odd over a horde of rampaging killing robots any day.

So all in all, we’re good.

I’ve been trying to work out what they’re up to, but nobody left an instruction manual lying around, so I’ve narrowed it down to two possibilities.

1: They need a great deal of rock, or

2: They need a very big hole.

Not the most comprehensive of analysis I’ll admit, but it’s the best I can do with the evidence at hand.

Mary’s been oddly silent since her little outburst, now the fear and adrenaline have worn off. Just sitting in the spaceship, staring. Whatever enraged her enough to cause her to charge into the middle of the lightdogs has either warn off, or she’s decided discretion is better than stupidity. I’d call that a win. All she says when I talk to her is that we need to get back to the city.

I can’t work out what these lightdogs are up to. And to be honest if it comes down to mysteries, I’d just rather go home.

Let’s get back, Mary.

1100

…And back to rolling a spaceship. The ship was fortunately where we’d left it.

1105

Just reached the hill where I, um, tripped before. Mary’s still silent, but she did give me a glare that was most communicative. I’ll be more careful this time.

1115

We’re going slower, being surer of our footing. About halfway.

1117

Thought I saw a spacesuit over there. Crap, did we leave it behind?

…wait, I’m wearing it. Never mind. Imagining things.

1125

Nearly there. There’s the rock I was looking at when I slipped.

…Should stop looking at it.

1128

At the top! First good look at the city in ages.

The hill’s pretty steep, so we’re going to let it roll and chase it down.

1130

Whee!